


the world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold

by MostWeakHamlets



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Caring Crowley, Crowley has anxiety, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oscar Wilde - Freeform, aziraphale goes from being the angel to his angel, crowley pines so hard, hurt aziraphale, the author cries over oscar wilde once a week, the author has also been listening to mitski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 17:36:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19891717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostWeakHamlets/pseuds/MostWeakHamlets
Summary: "They swayed almost on time. Neither were very good dancers, but it didn’t matter when they were alone. When they were alone, they could tread on each others’ toes and bump into one another and there wouldn’t be any fuss about it. Being as close as possible--hands clasped, hands wandering off the waist or shoulder to feel a soft curve or bony arm, hips pressed together--was the only step they cared about. When they danced, Crowley could swear that She had made the universe for just the two of them and that She had made them for each other."___Crowley learns to love Oscar Wilde for his angel.





	the world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold

**Author's Note:**

> i decided to change somethings about the canon pls just accept this. also so sorry to people who, like, Get music i did my best 
> 
> also if you don't know here's a brief and sad overview of Wilde's trials:  
> -1895: Wilde (accused of homosexuality) takes his lover's father to trial for slander, he loses and a warrant is issued for his arrest  
> -1895: Wilde is arrested, goes on trial again, is found guilty for "gross indecency", gives his "the love that dare not speak its name" speech,  
> -1895-1897: Wilde is imprisoned and sentenced to hard labour  
> -1897-1900: Wilde is ill, impoverished, and exiled  
> -1900: Wilde dies due to poor health in Paris

Jealousy was more suited for humans. There wasn’t much need for demons to get jealous. If they wanted something, they could simply get it. It’s easy to obtain whatever you want when you have no morals. Besides, their jobs were typically to inflict envy--a little tension between couples, encouraging politicians to cheat their way to higher positions. It was a fun pastime, Crowley had to admit. It was less fun to actually experience it. 

Crowley was only jealous for six years during his entire existence: 1889-1895. After the disaster of asking Aziraphale for holy water, Crowley saw little of the angel for the remainder of the century. Being in each other’s company was hard. Aziraphale, Crowley was sure, feared that holy water would creep back into conversation. No matter what the topic of conversation was, Crowley could see how uncomfortable and nervous Aziraphale looked. As if he didn’t trust Crowley. 

Crowley was offended and, if he were being truly honest with himself, heartbroken. Aziraphale didn’t want to talk to him. That was clear. He was happier in the literary and  _ aesthete  _ circles he had started appearing in, meeting all of the new authors and playwrights that were living glamorous and pretentiously dandy lives. They could give Aziraphale the conversation he wanted--discussions about the end of the Romantic era, how dreadful Dicken was. Nothing about holy water. Nothing about the troubles of being a celestial being. Just novels and plays and their remarkable lives in fur coats and leisure time spent in gardens. 

Crowley had few hopes of recovering their friendship as the decades passed him by. His last attempt of trying to make up with Aziraphale was in 1889. He had shown up at the bookshop, trying to get everything from his brain to his mouth--a half-hearted apology and a full-hearted plea to accept it because God, he missed Aziraphale and there was nothing to do without him around and he might as well stay in bed for the rest of the century if he couldn’t see the angel. Aziraphale had cut him off. He didn’t have time to talk. He was meeting a friend soon, and he truly didn’t want to keep having the same conversation. He was tired of it, couldn’t Crowley see? 

That was when Crowley felt the first tendrils of jealousy start to creep up on him and overtake his thoughts at night. 

Oscar Wilde was a nobody that year, but Crowley still ached when he thought of the tall, handsome man at lunch with the angel. It hurt, even more, when Wilde became a household name. He could imagine Aziraphale cooing over the new novel and the plays and the overall success. It made him angry. He never got that same attention from Aziraphale and he was responsible for the first sin for someone’s sake. Crowley was even more famous than Wilde, but he supposed clever plays and stories were more impressive to the angel. More acceptable. More approved of by Above. 

Crowley had bought a ticket for  _ The Importance of Being Earnest _ a few weeks after it opened. It was good, but it made him feel sick to imagine Aziraphale sitting there as it premiered, hands clasped and smiling as wide as he used to when he was with Crowley. Wilde was surely making Aziraphale happy again. Crowley left at intermission. 

1895 was a bad year, and Crowley spent most of it in bed trying to break free of his dangerously spiraling thoughts. 

Wilde had been arrested. Crowley’s heart sank the second he saw it in the papers. The only comfort he had was that Aziraphale’s name didn’t appear in the article--he quickly pushed that out of his mind. There was no silver lining. Two people were in trouble for something as innocent for existing as they were. Perhaps it would have been better if it was Aziraphale-- _ no.  _ No, why would he even think that? It brought two terrible thoughts to mind. The first being that even though Aziraphale could easily miracle himself out of any trouble, he would still be publicly disgraced and what would Heaven do? Heaven didn’t take kindly to legal scandals. Aziraphale would probably be forced to return to Heaven. The second thought made Crowley curl up in his bedsheets. It would be proof that Aziraphale was in love with someone else, and Crowley wasn’t sure if he could cope with that. 

Aziraphale was never  _ his.  _

He tried to keep up with the second trial as well as he could, chest tightening with every newspaper update. He truly felt sympathy for the man. He knew what having your own kind reject you felt like. Some nights he could still feel the burning from his own fall. 

Crowley stared at his ceiling most days, thinking about how, now that Wilde was in jail, he could see Aziraphale again. He’d quickly try to stop thinking about something so morbid before it crept back up the next morning. He truly didn’t want to benefit from any of it, though his demonic nature should have been rejoicing over selfishness. If he were a better demon, he would be encouraging the trials to go a little faster, putting some awful thoughts in the judge’s mind. Aziraphale would be disgusted if he ever knew what Crowley had thought on those mornings when he was alone with only his mind for company. He’d surely lose Aziraphale for good. 

By 1900, Crowley was paralyzed with the thought of Aziraphale mourning alone. He had briefly considered finding him to give his condolences, but he didn’t know where the angel would be--perhaps Paris (perhaps for good). Crowley couldn’t even imagine Aziraphale wanting to see him. He could only imagine his tired, grieving friend waving him away as he had in ‘89. 

They saw each other in 1941. Neither of them said anything about Wilde. Crowley hoped that the wounds had healed and secretly rejoiced in the way that Aziraphale looked at him after handing the bundle of books back. 

Wilde was hardly mentioned again. 

After the apocalypse and a night of sloppy, drunken confessions and plenty of messy crying, kissing and touching, they were settled in their ways. Every morning Crowley would meet his angel downstairs in the bookshop, catching him by the waist to kiss him for the first time that day. It was the small, tender moments that brought Crowley indescribable happiness. Every morning--every  _ single  _ morning for the rest of eternity--they could live with their tender routines. 

~

Aziraphale was nowhere to be seen. He always fussed over books in the morning and yet he was absent from the bookshelves. 

Crowley heard sniffling. He stepped into the back, worry gnawing at his stomach. He worried a lot in the days after the apocalypse (that’s not to say that he didn’t worry a lot before or during the apocalypse). 

Aziraphale sat at his desk, clutching a handkerchief in one hand and an open book in another. His cheeks were wet--truly soaked with tears that only came with sickening heartbreak--and his eyes red. He didn’t look up as Crowley walked closer. It didn’t seem as though he was actually reading. He stared at the pages, but his eyes were still and distant. 

Crowley knelt down in front of him, easing the book out of his hands. Aziraphale’s breath hitched with a sob as he dabbed at his face with his handkerchief. 

“I’m sorry, my dear. I didn’t hear you come down,” he said, trying his best to smile, though it only lasted for a second. “Don’t worry. I’m just being silly.”

Crowley closed the book.  _ The Picture of Dorian Gray.  _ An old copy. Perhaps an original that was crisp and clean when it first came out of the printing press. Now the spine was cracked, the paper was yellowing and wrinkling in spots where tears had splashed. Crowley ran his fingers over the fraying edges of the cover. He hoped to be so loved. Loved until ragged. 

“Humans can be so cruel,” Aziraphale said. 

Crowley took Aziraphale’s hand, running his thumb over his knuckles. 

There were always rare moments where Aziraphale struggled to find love for God’s creations. Daily, he avoided selling his books to them, but deep down he did care about their passions and well-being. But about once every few centuries, when humans devised their own tragedy and torture that Below honestly took no credit for, Aziraphale had to look out at them with disappointment. He had told Crowley once that he was never angry at them, but he was confused about how they could have Her never-ending love and still be so heinous. He had expected  _ some  _ of the humans to turn out less-than-Good but he didn’t expect so many wars and revolutions and conquests. 

“How about we get some air? Let’s take a walk.” 

Aziraphale shook his head. “I would prefer not to.”

And what hurt Aziraphale the most, Crowley knew, was when the humans were insisting they were doing it all in Her name. She had her games, of course, but there was so much that the humans took too far. It took years in the 18th century to convince Aziraphale that the “sodomy” nonsense was all the human’s doing. Below was indifferent to it and, honestly, didn’t know where it came from. 

Crowley reached up to wipe a few new tears away. 

“Let’s listen to something, then. Make you feel better.”

He was at the record player within a few seconds. He shuffled through albums, finally picking something he knew Aziraphale had listened to frequently. The needle hit the first groove a little too hard as Crowley let it go with the carelessness that came with his urgency. Nevertheless, a harp was plucking the same way it always had. 

Aziraphale was looking up at him, a smile actually starting to appear. 

Crowley walked back to him and held out a hand. Aziraphale took it as the violins became the center of attention and the rest of the orchestra fell into the background. Crowley could imagine the cellist’s head dramatically bobbing back and forth with the tempo.

“This is more of a manic sound than I was hoping for,” Crowley said. “Not really appropriate for the mood.”

“Maybe Chopin would be better?” Aziraphale asked, waving to the records. 

The full orchestra was replaced by a piano, slow and moody. Crowley nodded. 

“Nocturne opus nine number two,” Aziraphale said, rising to his feet. “I remember the first time I heard it.”

They assumed appropriate positions. Crowley rested his hand on Aziraphale’s waist. Aziraphale’s went to Crowley’s shoulder. 

“See, humans aren’t all bad. They might be horribly prejudiced at times, but they can write some damn good music.”

They swayed almost on time. Neither were very good dancers, but it didn’t matter when they were alone. When they were alone, they could tread on each others’ toes and bump into one another and there wouldn’t be any fuss about it. Being as close as possible--hands clasped, hands wandering off the waist or shoulder to feel a soft curve or bony arm, hips pressed together--was the only step they cared about. When they danced, Crowley could swear that She had made the universe for just the two of them and that She had made them for each other. 

“Perhaps they do deserve more credit,” he said, voice so soft it made Crowley want to listen forever. “After all, Oscar was one of them.”

Crowley forced a smile. 

“I told him all about you, you know,” Aziraphale continued, eyes welling up again. He took a shuddering breath before continuing. “About us. How I felt about you even all those years ago. It made him feel… right. To know he wasn’t alone.”

Crowley pressed his forehead against his angel’s. He understood the feeling. 

He hoped that Wilde had danced. 


End file.
